ABUSE

More Ballarat clergy
victims: advocate (The West
Australian) May 14 - Many victims who haven't come forward decades after being abused by
clergy and religious in Ballarat might be prompted to speak up when the abuse
royal commission sits in the Victorian town, a victims' advocate hopes.

Vatican moves to
recognise the state of Palestine(Sydney Morning Herald) May 14 - Rome: The Vatican has concluded a treaty to recognise Palestinian
statehood, a symbolic but significant step that was bound to be welcomed by
many Palestinians but was likely to cause deep concern for the Israeli
government.

Egyptian court seeks
death penalty for ex-president Mursi (The West Australian) May 16 - CAIRO (Reuters) - An Egyptian court on Saturday sought the death
penalty for former president Mohamed Mursi and 106 supporters of his Muslim
Brotherhood in connection with a mass jail break in 2011.

Judaism

US rabbi jailed for
secretly filming women (The West
Australian) May 16 - A Washington rabbi who admitted setting up cameras to spy on women as
they prepared for Jewish ritual baths was sentenced Friday to more than six
years in prison, the Justice Department said.

Gunmen kill 43 in bus
attack in Pakistan's Karachi (The
West Australian) May 13 - KARACHI, Pakistan (Reuters) - Gunmen on motorcycles boarded a bus and
opened fire on commuters in Pakistan's volatile southern city of Karachi on
Wednesday, killing at least 43, police said, and militants affiliated with
Islamic State claimed responsibility.

ISIS deputy leader
killed by coalition airstrike (The
Australian) May 15 - The deputy leader of Islamic State was reported dead yesterday in a
coalition airstrike, weeks after unconfirmed but persistent reports that the
head of the jihadist group had been seriously wounded in a similar strike.

Ex-Soviet Central Asia raises
alarm over IS recruitment (The
West Australian) May 15 - Dushanbe (Tajikistan) (AFP) - Farrukh Sharifov, a 25-year-old Tajik
who repented after joining the Islamic State group in Syria, spoke softly as he
addressed a room full of journalists and police in his Central Asian homeland.

IS Leader Abu Sayyaf killed
in US Special Forces raid(Sydney Morning Herald) May 17 - WASHINGTON - American special operations forces killed senior Islamic
State leader Abu Sayyaf, in a raid in Syria, US officials said on Saturday, an
operation that appeared to mark a departure from Washington's strategy of
relying mostly on a bombing campaign to target militant leaders there.

China church criticises
proposed rules on crosses (The
West Australian) May 15 - Shanghai (AFP) - A state-approved Chinese church has issued a rare
public criticism of proposed local government regulations on religious
buildings, including limits on cross sizes, after a wave of church demolitions
and symbol removals in the area.

Revealed: The split that
created Al-Furqan(Herald-Sun, Melbourne) May 16 - THE leader of the controversial Al-Furqan group, whose members have
links to three counterterrorism operations, held such radical views Australia’s
most fundamentalist Islamic movement cut ties with him.

Melbourne drug rehab
centre fined for misleading(ABC
News) May 11 - A drug rehabilitation centre with links to the Church of Scientology
has been fined and forced to remove claims from its website that it could
completely cure drug addiction with detox treatments, including sauna visits.